Jason O’Halloran leads the pack at Silverstone

The 2019 Bennetts British Superbike Championship is back on track! On the opening day of the season Jason O’Halloran saved his best until last in the second free practice session to head the times at Silverstone, becoming the only rider to lap in the 53s barrier.

The McAMS Yamaha team began the session strongly with Tarran Mackenzie setting the initial benchmark ahead of Team WD-40 Kawasaki’s Claudio Corti and Scott Redding, but Josh Brookes was gaining momentum after setting the pace in FP1.

O’Halloran went to the top of the times ahead of Mackenzie and Corti with 20 minutes remaining but it was Dan Linfoot who climbed the order into second in the final five minutes for the Santander Salt TAG Yamaha team to split the McAMS Yamaha team-mates with Luke Mossey inching into the top five.

Mossey was then on the move and he moved into second, just adrift of O’Halloran who continued to improve his pace with Christian Iddon again showing the pace of the new Tyco BMW to edge into the top five.

In the final three minutes Mackenzie improved again; moving into second where he would stay until the end of the session as his team-mate had the edge with Mossey completing the top three for OMG Racing Suzuki.

Brookes held fourth place to lead the Be Wiser Ducati charge with Iddon completing the top five, pushing Linfoot into sixth with former MotoGP contenders Redding and Corti in close contention with Josh Elliott and Keith Farmer completing the top ten.

Jason O’Halloran – McAMS Yamaha
P1 after FP1 and FP2 at Silverstone
“It has been a really positive day and it feels good to finish on top again. I am starting to get used to it and that feeling if I am honest!

“We did a good, longer run in FP2 which I was pleased with and had a little bit of a go at the end of the session for a time.

“We still have some areas to work on for sure and we will be looking through the data tonight to refine it a little and smooth it out, but it has been a good start.”